Dean v. Munhall

Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Dean v. Munhall, 11 Pa. Super. 69 (1899)
1899 Pa. Super. LEXIS 107
Beaver, Berber, Orlady, Porter, Rice, Smith

Dean v. Munhall

Opinion of the Court

Opinion by

William W. Porter,

The common-law power of the court below to set aside the judgment and grant a new trial was manifestly exhausted by the order of March 7, 1898, discharging the rule. Such power ends at the expiration of the term at which the judgment is entered (Hill v. Egan, 2 Pa. Superior Ct. 596), although a motion made within the term may be disposed of at a subsequent term: Lance v. Bonnell, 105 Pa. 46. The leave given on March 9, 1898, to reargue did not reopen the order of March 7,1898. The two orders were not “ legally contemporaneous,” as in Van Vliet v. Conrad, 95 Pa. 494, and the leave to reargue was subsequently, on June 9,1898, withdrawn by the court. In this view of the case, the court was without power to make the order of June 24, 1898, from which this appeal is taken. There was no equitable jurisdiction in the court to make it, in the absence of any allegation of fraud practised in procuring it and the case of Fisher v. The Railway, 185 Pa. 602, is not therefore in point.

The order of the court below is reversed.

Rice, P. J., and Beaver, J., dissent.

Reference

Full Case Name
E. W. Dean v. Michael Munhall
Cited By
8 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
Opening judgment — Jurisdictions expire with the term. The power of the court to set aside a judgment obtained adversely and grant a new trial expires with the term at which the judgment is entered. Leave given on March 9 to reargue a motion for a new trial in a case where an adverse verdict was obtained in the preceding term does not open an order of March 7 refusing the motion; hence the court is without power in a following term to set aside the order of March 7, open the judgment by an order made in July, two terms after the judgment and one term after the motion for reargument had been refused.